Happy Australian Men's Day: Women outnumbered 2 to 1 in award honours

The good news is, some great women have been recognised with Australia Day honours today. The bad news is, it's 2017 and males still outnumber female recipients nearly two to one.

The list, which honours those who have contributed to various areas of Australian life, was announced this morning. But, of today's 727 recipients, only 252 were women and 475 men.

Unfortunately, this gender imbalance is just as evident in the award nominations, which included 651 men and 320 women being put forward to receive honours in 31 categories. Six categories, including building and construction and engineering, had no women nominated at all. While only two categories — library and related occupations and veterinary science — had no men nominated. But in fact, the latter had no nominations.

Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard was one of 10 people to receive the top honour of Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) today. However, she told ABC news she wanted to see a change in the gender imbalance among recipients.

"If you believe, as I do, that merit is equally distributed between the sexes and you look at anything and you’re not seeing basically half men and half women, then that’s got to tell you that there are women of merit who are missing out," she said.

"When I look at our great nation, I think women are contributing to its building equally to men, so when we’re recognising those who have, sort of, put their shoulders to the wheel for Australia, you would expect to see around about half-half, rather than the statistics we’re seeing now."

She added that debating the gender skew could "lead us in some very strong directions".

Ms Gillard, who was given the nod for her contribution to politics, was accompanied in receiving the top honour by former Queensland Premier Anna Bligh.

But given such women made up only about a third of total recipients, people are questioning the lack of diversity.

"It is simply not true that great women are not nominated. I know of at least two fabulous women who missed out AGAIN," journalist Catherine Overington posted on Twitter.

"With a government with the least number of women in the last 20 years, is this a surprise? We are what we see," Denise Shrivell wrote.

On the bright side, the number of women nominated in 2017 is up on previous years. Nearly four percent more women were recognised with nominations this year than last year and a almost 20 percent more than figures almost a decade ago.